A brief glimpse into "madness."

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andrea gibson

Today, I want to share with you a poem/spoken word piece that has always deeply resonated with me. The first (and second, and third…) time I heard it, I was reduced to helpless tears. I had the privilege of meeting Andrea Gibson and seeing her perform about six years ago, when she was doing a show in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. I ended up getting a comforting hug and crying on her shoulder when I told her how much this poem means to me, and I will never forget that moment.

“The trauma said, don’t write this poem. No one wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.” This, and the final lines: “Live. Live. Live.” will always make me cry–not from sadness, but from relief. This is the single most reassuring thing I have ever read (and heard) in my life.

When I discovered Andrea Gibson I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was not alone and that everything was going to be all right in the end. It was the first step in my long journey that eventually culminated in the ability to just sit with the pain and accept it for what it is. I have learned that no matter how low I feel, how dark the dark nights of the soul get, not every day will be like today.

The Nutritionist

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables
Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day
I would be grounded,
rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness is.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight
Said for 20 dollars she’d tell me what to do
I handed her the twenty,
she said “stop worrying darling, you will find a good man soon.”

The first psychotherapist said I should spend 3 hours a day sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed, with my ears plugged
I tried once but couldn’t stop thinking about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet

The yogi told me to stretch everything but truth,
said focus on the outbreaths,
everyone finds happiness when they can care more about what they can give than what they get

The pharmacist said klonopin, lamictil, lithium, Xanax
The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget what the trauma said
The trauma said don’t write this poem
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones

My bones said “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.”
My bones said “write the poem.”

The lamplight.
Considering the river bed.
To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread.
To everyday you could not get out of bed.
To the bulls eye on your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die.
I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do-
Is remind ourselves over and over and over
Other people feel this too

The tomorrow that has come and gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing that letter to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried”
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back
There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into your spine

So let me tell you I know there are days it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings
You are not alone and wondering who will be convicted of the crime of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame
You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy

I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside
Some people will never understand the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house
But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing
A life can be rich like the soil
Can make food of decay
Can turn wound into highway
Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says
“it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society”

I have never trusted anyone with the pulled back bow of my spine the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat
Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound
Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town
Calculating exactly what I had to swallow to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.

So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don’t try to put me back in
just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better
but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts may have only just skinned their knees knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming
let me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be here
asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet

my god that’s enough
my god that is so so much for the light to give
each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over
“Live”
“Live”
“Live”

You can watch one of the many versions of Andrea performing here, and I encourage you to check it out! It’s a great reminder that no matter how lonely we get, none of us exist in a vacuum.

Continue to raise your bite against the bitter dark, friends. Fight as hard as you can, because the world sees us as broken. Refuse to give up. Fight to show everyone that you matter, that you are more than the sum of your parts or the chemicals inside your brain. You are more than a diagnosis, a code on a medical chart, the endless insurance claims and the bills and the medications you swallow every day just to feel okay.

You are a human being, first and foremost. I hope none of you ever forget that. You matter. Your life matters. You are worth something to the universe not because of who you are or what you’ve done, but because you’re here. And you’re going to be okay.